Band:	Mechina
Album:	Acheron
Style:	Industrial symphonic metal
Release date:	January 2015

01. Proprioception
02. Earth-Born Axiom
03. Vanquisher
04. On The Wings Of Nefeli
05. The Halcyon Purge
06. Lethean Waves
07. Ode To The Forgotten Few
08. The Hyperion Threnody
09. Adrasteia
10. Invictus Daedalus
11. The Future Must Be Met

The past 3 years have been celebrated with the arrival of a new Mechina album, making the symphonic industrial-tinged metallers one of the more prolific metal bands around. Whilst remaining within their definitive sound, the band has just about avoided excessive repetition and staved off musical fatigue, yet one wonders whether this regular output might ultimately impact upon the quality of the music produced.

2013's Empyrean established the band's mix of low-end staccato guitar chugging, extravagant symphonic arrangements and both extreme and clean vocals, but with something of a lack of variety during its run-time, whereby the staccato riffing could at times become almost terminally repetitive, and also a somewhat muddy, unbalanced production. Xenon addressed these issues, with a clearer, more evenly-matched sound and greater diversity, driven by more prominent male cleans and boosted by brief appearances by female cleans, electronic sounds and glitches, and a broader non-metal instrument range. Some additions worked better than others - the piano worked well and "Zoticus's" electronic melody excited, but other instruments were less well implemented and the female cleans weren't fully developed. Now, Acheron further rectifies some of Xenon's problems, yet at the same time delivers new problems.

By a good 15 minutes, this is the longest album of the trio, and you can see why almost straightaway. An introductory mood-setter is followed by an 8-plus-minute track that introduces the metal and symphonics and demonstrates a solid sonic balance between the two, yet features nothing more than brief choral vocals and female cleans, effectively resulting in a 13-minute instrumental introduction before the meat-and-potatoes sound arrives. This ponderous tone, forgotten with the strong subsequent songs, becomes troublesome again when, less than halfway through, there are 6 tracks remaining, of which four are interlude or mood-setting pieces. This does act to offer up some variety in the album's sound, welcome given how one-note Empyrean and even Xenon were prone to being at times, but frankly acts as overkill, especially given that aside from the pleasant but protracted strings/piano female vocal-driven ballad "Ode To The Forgotten Few", these pieces offer very little in the way of substance. This overload of "non-song" music, although likely contributing to the band's storytelling, is to the album's detriment. The actual core musical content of the album does at least lift it up, despite a few flaws.

The biggest vocal shift here is the greater prominence of female vocals, both poppy ones on "Ode?" and also a greater and more successful presence of the ethereal, almost instrumental ones heard on past records, best utilised on "On The Wings Of Nefeli", a stellar song that rival's Xenon's title track as the band's best individual song to date. Concerning the other vocals, the clean robotic male vocals that have proven very divisive (but of which I'm rather fond) dominate "The Halcyon Purge", a very catchy electronic-sounding song that I highly enjoy; however, they are much less common through the rest of the album. I consider this a weakness; even though the vocal tone might not work for everyone, the vocal melodies offered much-needed phrasing and hooks to songs on past records that would've been beneficial on Acheron. As far as the music goes, the expected industrial guitars and bombastic symphonics are present in every way one might anticipate, and work well on most of the songs - however, I feel like, particularly on "Invictus Daedalus", there is a real tendency to rely on exaggerated string/orchestral accompaniments rather than effectively developing the metal side of their sound, something they could definitely work on in the future.

In summary, Acheron is neither a grand departure nor repeat outing for Mechina, and has both strengths and weaknesses compared to their previous year-openers. I would not consider it their best - the padding and relative similarity to past albums stops it truly shining. However, it is a decent enough introduction to the band for a novice and offers some of the group's best moments, even if diluted amongst filler.